Wand Lore
by The Half Mad Muggle
Summary: An insight into the relationship between Albus and Severus from a different viewpoint - someone who knew that, one day, they would most likely be allies in this war.


**Wand Lore**

_An insight into the relationship between Albus and Severus from a different viewpoint - someone who knew that, one day, they would most likely be allies in this war._

_This has been on my mind since I first fell in love with Albus and Severus. That was precisely two years, one month ago. Since then, they have become my life._

_~ SS19_

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><p>The wand chooses the wizard. Most forget this - they believe that wands are not sentient objects with thoughts and feelings, and it is they who choose the wand. The wand can tell things about a person's true character, long before that person knows it themselves. I suppose that was how I knew the true character of Severus Snape.<p>

Severus Snape. I remember him. Even as a boy, at the age of eleven, he had an air of superiority that was not quite arrogance. He was with his mother when they came to my shop, to purchase his wand for Hogwarts School - she seemed to dote upon him, one hand on his shoulder, and even though his eyes were fascinated by what was happening around him, I saw determination too. Ambition. He wanted to be the best - at whatever he chose to specialise him - I could see that from a distance. When he entered my shop, I thought he would simply be a very clever scholar of Transfiguration or Potions or perhaps Charms. By the time he left, with his new wand in his hand, I have gained a very different picture. One that would haunt me - because the wand that chose him would link him to a very great destiny indeed.

The moment he entered, I heard the wand whisper to me - but I ignored it. It was an abandoned wand, one that had been forgotten and left to gather dust. It was a quiet wand and did not attract attention to itself, so for most of the time, it was neglected. I had not heard it so vocal in my time here - but I knew about this wand. Of course I knew about this particular wand. But I ignored it, and I gave him a substandard wand with a core of dragon heartstring and carved from cedar, a wood that showed true shrewdness. I knew, the moment I passed it to him, that it would not be right. I think he knew, too, because he simply raised a dark eyebrow at me when he held the wand in his hand and nothing happened. So I took it back from him and chose another - this time, walnut with unicorn hair - and once again, nothing.

All the while, the wand in the corner was whispering to me, singing to me, trying to attract my attention. I turned and took it from the shelf, opening the box and examining it. The wand was black ash, a rare wood naturally but with strong properties such as power and ambition. It was a wand that was quick to learn. The core, quite simply, was phoenix tail feather - from a phoenix that I did not know. This wand had been made many thousands of years before - it had been in this shop as it passed from descendant to descendant of the Ollivander family and only once had it been nearly purchased.

My father had many famous customers - but one of the most famous and most well known now is Albus Dumbledore, who purchased his wand from my father. My father told the tale many a time, how he did not know that the boy in his shop would be one of the most powerful wizards of all time - and how he gave him a wand with a phoenix core, and he picked the wand and the wand sang to him and communicated with him - and yet Albus Dumbledore _denied _it. The wand chooses the wizard - except in this case, Albus Dumbledore asked not to have the particular wand - he wanted a different one - and my father, stunned, offered him a more powerful counterpart - and Albus Dumbledore left with this wand instead. The other wand was left, rejected by who should have had it, to lie in the shop until…

Until one Severus Snape walked into the shop with his mother, a boy of eleven years old, and I was lifting the wand from the box and passing it to him.

The wand chooses the wizard. This wand, this wand that had been touched only by Albus Dumbledore before, fitted perfectly into his hand and was near perfectly balanced. He liked it from that moment, and it whispered something to him, and he fell in love with it in that mere moment. He purchased it, the wand that should have belonged to Albus Dumbledore, and I knew then that we would hear great things from Severus Snape.

It was, at the end, the wand that killed Albus Dumbledore - and I can sit now, and look at the tomb with the black stained marble and ponder the body of he who lies inside - loyal until the end. A wand can tell a story by its choice of wizard - and this wand, the wand that lies inside with its owner, told a story of trust and a connection that would link Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape - no wizard had ever rejected a wand before, so never had a wand declared its allegiance to two people with no duel - and yet. It will become a legend in wandlore, the wand that chose two wizards, just as the two men it chose will become legends, stories told to the children of many generations to come, the great and the powerful Albus Dumbledore and his most loyal follower.

I could have told them all that the day Severus Snape came to my shop, twenty six years ago, to purchase his wand.


End file.
